We hosted a pre-caucus house party this evening at our home during which I asked our guests to express what it is they are looking for in a presidential candidate in one word. Their answers make quite a list!
I do hope and pray that our next president will be marked by attributes like these!
Writing in Sojouorners magazine (In the prison-industrial complex, is there hope for redemption?), Nancy Hastings Sehested, a Baptist minister and prison chaplain, describes a North Carolina maximum-security prison this way:
Colorful flowers mark the path to the gatehouse. Then the stripping away begins in earnest. It is a gray day every day in this prison. Gray walls, gray floors, and gray ceilings. The gray uniforms worn by the men can fade their faces into obscurity. The blue uniforms of the staff can create the same effect. Holding a gaze is crucial in seeing the person beyond the clothing. A simple “hello” can seem like a subversive act in a place where everyone is defined by role.
Now I know that prisons are not meant to be “cushy” places, and that justice — at least in part — is about punishment and the deserved forfeiture of rights and privileges. Nevertheless, after reading Sehested’s description, I found myself wondering what gray on gray on gray does to the human soul?
In creating a lifeless and colorless and despair-inducing environment, what do we hope to accomplish? It seems to me that such an environment would readily foster nihilistic thoughts and desperate acts and a soul-killing sense of resignation, hopelessness, and resentment.
I know what the colors and scents of a garden can do for my soul. I know how stepping outside and watching the ebb and flow of tree limbs in the wind or hearing the chatter of birds or taking my dog for a walk in the early morning sunlight can lift my spirits.
Justice — at least in part — is also about rehabilitation and restoration, and it seems to me that those things that can lift spirits and renew a love for life and restore a sense of beauty could provide invaluable aid in turning inmates lives around. I am no corrections expert, but I don’t see how we make a man or woman more human or more hospitable by sequestering them in an inhuman and inhospitable environment.
Within those prison walls, we literally have a captive audience. What a teaching opportunity! What an opportunity — not to confirm the fatalistic notion that the spoils go to the strongest and the “baddest” — but to show another way to measure value, another way to enjoy beauty, another way to satisfy the longings of the human soul. Only God can finally satisfy those longing, but it is the colors and scents and textures and vistas of all of creation that point us to God.
Maybe colorful flowers should mark the paths inside the prison walls, too …
Lord Jesus, forgive us for all the ways we deny you …
… by remaining quiet in the shadows, not daring to speak our faith in the public arena
… by quietly going about our own business, while neglecting to wonder what your business might be
… by being more American than Christian, more the children of our culture than the children of God
… by adopting a lifestyle and a system of values that are indistinguishable from the rest of the world, pursuing wealth instead of justice, accumulating things instead of sharing generously, protecting ourselves whatever the cost instead of showing mercy whatever the cost
… by approving of revenge, calling it “being tough on crime” or “protecting our national interest”
… by approving of greed, calling it “the entreprenurial spirit” or “the natural workings of a market economy”
… by approving of hate, calling it “defending the faith” or “protecting family values”
Forgive us, Lord Jesus …
We know that you will. We know that you will never deny us. We know that you will welcome us with joy when we confess our sins and confess our need of you. We know that you know that we do love you and want to learn to love you better.
May it be so. May we love you as you have loved us and love us still … and may we show it by refusing to deny you.
From a March 8, 2007 article by Andrew Buncombe in The Independent:
Campaigners have condemned the Bush administration’s plan to proceed with secret proceedings [Combatant Status Review Tribunals (CSRT)] against 14 “high-value” terrorism suspects currently being held at Guantanamo Bay. The suspects include Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, accused of organising the 11 September 2001 attacks.
The military tribunals, scheduled to begin tomorrow, will take place behind closed doors and away from the scrutiny of the media. Hundreds of previous hearings held to determine the formal status of the prisoners have been open to reporters. None of the suspects will be able to have a lawyer present …
Wells Dixon, a lawyer with the New York-based Centre for Constitutional Rights, which represents one of the men due to go before a CSRT, Majid Khan, said: “This is a system designed to obtain a pre-determined result.”
Mr. Dixon said that Mr. Bush had admitted the 14 men had been subjected to “enhanced interrogation” techniques which he said was a euphemism for torture. He added that under the CSRT rules the government could use information obtained under torture. He added: “You don’t know what is true until you have given them a fair trial.”
Secret proceedings, no lawyers, “enhanced interrogation techniques” …… “High-value” suspects or not, this is no recipe for justice, and no recipe for winning the hearts and minds of the international community which is the key to winning the war on terrorism! If we want to win that war, we must show we are committted — truly committed — to justice for its own sake, and to the rule of law as a matter of principle, not just when it happens to suit our purposes or serves to protect those we choose to protect.
John Kerry (Democrat): This bill gives an administration that lobbied for torture exactly what it wanted.
No, this administration did not lobby for torture. It lobbied for a free and unfettered hand in conducting its “war on terrorism” by whatever means it deems necessary and effective … which may include means that most people would consider torture. The problem here is not leaders that advocate cruelty, but leaders that believe that they should be given “extraordinary” and unilateral latitude in getting the job done. Getting it done is more important than how it is done.
But one of the cornerstones of democracy is that how it is done is of utmost importance!
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John Warner (Republican): Enemy combatants are unlawful by all international standards in the manner in which they conduct war, and yet this great nation … is going to mete out a measure of justice.
A measure of justice? Why just a measure? Is “liberty and justice for all” mere hyberbole? Is justice to be meted out conditionally, depending on the perceived merits of the accused? Depending on the accused’s presumed political allegiances … religious allegiance … nationality … race? Is our “lawfulness” contingent on the “lawfulness” of our enemies? Of whomever we say is our enemy?
Do you see the very dangerous road down which such rhetoric — and such legislation — is leading us? A road that leads us not toward, but away, from liberty and justice?
From the Los Angeles Times, June 5, 2006:
The Pentagon has decided to omit from new detainee policies a key tenet of the Geneva Convention that explicitly bans “humiliating and degrading treatment,” according to knowledgeable military officials, a step that would mark a further, potentially permanent, shift away from strict adherence to international human rights standards.
The decision could culminate a lengthy debate within the Defense Department but will not become final until the Pentagon makes new guidelines public, a step that has been delayed. However, the State Department fiercely opposes the military’s decision to exclude Geneva Convention protections and has been pushing for the Pentagon and White House to reconsider, the Defense Department officials acknowledged.
For more than a year, the Pentagon has been redrawing its policies on detainees, and intends to issue a new Army Field Manual on interrogation, which, along with accompanying directives, represents core instructions to U.S. soldiers worldwide.
The process has been beset by debate and controversy, and the decision to omit Geneva protections from a principal directive comes at a time of growing worldwide criticism of U.S. detention practices and the conduct of American forces in Iraq.
The directive on interrogation, a senior defense official said, is being rewritten to create safeguards so that all detainees are treated humanely but can still be questioned effectively.
President Bush’s critics and supporters have debated whether it is possible to prove a direct link between administration declarations that it will not be bound by Geneva and events such as the abuses at Abu Ghraib or the killings of Iraqi civilians last year in Haditha, allegedly by Marines.
But the exclusion of the Geneva provisions may make it more difficult for the administration to portray such incidents as aberrations. And it undercuts contentions that U.S. forces follow the strictest, most broadly accepted standards when fighting wars.
“The rest of the world is completely convinced that we are busy torturing people,” said Oona A. Hathaway, an expert in international law at Yale Law School. “Whether that is true or not, the fact we keep refusing to provide these protections in our formal directives puts a lot of fuel on the fire.”
The State Department has it right. How can we protect and defend our ideals … while casting aside our ideals? How do we defend liberty by restricting liberty? How do we defend justice by ignoring internationally accepted standards of justice? How do we advocate for human rights while picking and choosing which people have rights and which do not?
The Rev. William Sloane Coffin, Jr. died yesterday. Rev. Coffin was university chaplain during my time at Yale, and many years later has won my admiration as a genuine person of faith and a powerful voice for truth and justice and peace — God’s truth, God’s justice, God’s peace. The stories told about him and the stories told by him (see Credo, a collection of quotations and excerpts from his writing) have prompted me to do some serious re-examination of my self-understanding as a minister of the gospel.
A year ago, Yale Divinity School brought together Rev. Coffin and some four hundred of his friends, colleagues, and students to celebrate “The Public Witness and Ministry of William Sloane Coffin, Jr.” Here is an excerpt of the remarks given by Rev. Coffin at that event. I strongly suggest that you click on the link at the end of the excerpt and read the whole of his address! As Jesus’ followers and as Jesus’ church, we need to listen carefully to this voice of wisdom and courage and faithfulness.
Arthur Miller, of blessed memory, once wrote “I could not imagine a theater worth my time that did not want to change the world.â€
I feel the same way about religious faith; it should want to change the world. The “blood-dimmed tide†loosed in the last century claimed more lives than all wars in all previous centuries, and the present century is filled with violence and cruelty. We seem more intent on fighting God’s will than doing God’s will. Therefore, the most urgent religious question is not ‘What must I do to be saved?†but rather “What must we all do to save God’s imperiled planet?â€
Spirituality takes various forms. In many faiths some are very profound while others, particularly these days, appear to be a mile wide and one inch deep. Urgently needed for our time is a politically engaged spirituality.
I believe Christianity is a worldview that undergirds all progressive thought and action. The Christian church doesn’t have a social ethic as much as it is a social ethic, called to respond to biblical mandates like truth-telling, confronting injustice and pursuing peace. What is so heart-breaking is that, in a world of pain crying out for change, so many American churches today are basically down to management and therapy.
A politically engaged spirituality does not call for theological sledgehammers bludgeoning people into rigid orthodoxy. Nor does it mean using scriptural language as an illegitimate shortcut to conclusions, thereby avoiding ethical deliberation. We have constantly to be aware of hard choices informed by the combination of circumstances and conscience. We insult ourselves by leaving complexities unexamined. But never must we become so cautious as to be moral failures …
Much has been made of the missteps of the prosecution team in the trail of Zacarias Moussaoui, a confessed al-Qaeda operative. Because one of the prosecution lawyers illegally coached several witnesses, Judge Leonie Brinkema ruled that the witnesses could not be called, severely undermining the government’s case against Moussaoui. On Friday, however, Judge Brinkema agreed to let the government substitute other “untainted” witnesses.
The great outcry over the government’s mistakes, raised by media commentators and relatives of some of the victims of the 9/11/01 attack on the World Trade Center, disturbs me. I do understand the need to “get this right,” since Moussaoui is the only person to be tried in connection with the 9/11 attacks. And I do understand the extraordinary pain of those whose loved ones were taken from them through this hateful and horrible act directed against innocent people.
But Moussaoui has confessed, granted, not to involvement with the 9/11 attacks per se, but to conspiring to fly airplanes into buildings. He has been convicted and will face life in prison. The only function of the trial at this point is to determine sentence, and the only goal of the prosecution is to win the death penalty.
The cry is not for justice, it is for blood. What will be lost if the government fails to win its case? Moussaoui will have been apprehended and will pay for his crime with the rest of his life. He will not have “gotten away with it.” Justice will be done.
It is sad — and disturbing — that some will be satisfied with nothing less than blood for blood. Why do we require a life? What need will be satisfied in us if he is executed? Will the taking of his life compensate in any way for the 3000 lives that were taken from us? At best, we will have satisfied our own questionable need for retribution. And at worst, we will have shown ourselves no better than any of those who defend their cause, whatever it may be, by taking human life.
There are other ways of dealing with grief, other ways of responding to injury.
Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may become the children of your Father in heaven.
Connie Taylor’s son died in the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. Last Sunday, at a church gathering in White Plains, New York, she met Aicha el-Wafi, the mother of Zacharias Moussaoui, and embraced her. “She is blaming her son, in part,” Taylor said. “That must be so horrible. I didn’t experience that.” Read the report of their meeting: 9/11 Mom Hugs Moussaoui’s Mother.
Choose a different path. Choose Jesus’ way …